19 March, we will have extraordinary elections to Majilis and Maslikhats. There are some features, that will make upcoming elections different from the elections campaign of 2021 – those are party lists and single-mandate constituencies. Political observer Daniyar Ashimbayev forecasts some epic rivalry, manipulations with votes and even post-election debauchery.
Scandals and Dirty Technologies
— Daniyar, many Kazakhstanis have declared intention to run for elections. How many of them have realistic chances to make it to Maslikhats and the Majilis? Has the system turned more simple or more complicated, compared to last elections of 2004?
— The fact is that rivalry is high. Compared to previous elections, these upcoming ones have smaller quantity of constituencies. Many of those intending to run for elections just did not find themselves appropriate parties. That is why, we could have up to 20 candidacies in constituencies.
Our regular attrition rate is some 30% to 50%, which means that in fact we might have 7 to 8 individuals in the bulletins.
Our present election procedure is, of course, more simplified, compared to previous campaigns, but it does not eliminate the problem of competition in Maslikhats. And those bulletins will not necessarily be one page. And because we will see some 4 to 6 bulletins, depending on particular provinces, it is easy to imagine what mess will our people in their heads, when they come to vote. Thing are very not clear both with independent candidates and parties. We will see at least 7 parties running, the majority of which will act under new names, including our leading political force – Amanat. Four parties are currently at the stage of registration, so technically they might not cope to register prior to pre-electioneering.
The difference from previous elections is the relative majority procedure. The winner will be not the one who racks up 50%, but the one who wins the majority of votes.
Our constituencies are big, but the turnout will not be that high. People still need time to “get back on rails” after previous elections. With 8 to 10 candidates on a bulletin, the gap between them be small. In other words, it may turn out so, that half of the candidates will win not more than 10% of votes.
When pre-electioneering launches, we will see loads of dirty technologies in operation. We will see hyping for the attraction of the public attention, mutual accusations, bribing of voters, especially in constituencies where money may influence the opinions of those voting.
It’s been 20 years after we had mixed-type of election process. Many of us just forgot how it was like then. The Maslikhat elections of 2003 and Majilis elections of 2004 were taking place in the atmosphere is hysterics – we saw mad rivalry and rather hectic pre-election campaigning among local establishments. Businessmen, public servants and educated middle class were just voluptuously eating each other by all means and at all costs.
Social Network Shall Not Help Elections
— Is above, in the principle, a feature characteristic of all elections?
— More or less so. 20 years ago, one of my buddies was in a hospital. One day prior to elections, I came to see him. Then this nurse entered his room and told patients that one the day of elections they all were supposed to stay put in their quarters until 12-00. She added that there would be no medical procedures, until they all voted. And, leaving the quarters, she reminded to forget not to vote a specific candidacy, the name of which she openly declared.
Elections of 2003 and 2004 saw not only political and economic, but also tribal and clan interests in operations.
In one of the provinces, local executive bodies supported a candidate just for the fact of kinship. And so it was in some other provinces.
Later, Majilis elections were reformatted to comply with the party lists principle. It was done to eliminate all potential conflicts and scandals. Nur Otan had their primaries in Maslikhats, so that only one candidate would run. That is how they wanted to prevent rivalry between Chief Medical Officers and Chief Administrative Officers of public medical centers.
Elections of 2021 were based on party lists. It resulted in alienation between the parties and the population. As for Maslikhats, the ones supposed to be key bodies of representative governance, they developed an abyss between themselves and constituencies.
Eventually, we came to that mixed configuration. In Almaty we see all sorts of candidacies from all sorts of opposition and independent runners.
But we don’t see any coordination of all those processes – which candidates is losing votes, where those votes go, and what is the general sociological picture of that.
I remember an election campaign in one of constituencies, where a lot of famous people were running for elections. Those were PhDs, Academicians, authors and all sorts of party activists. Each one of them crunched-off the voting body-mass his and her portion of votes, but the final winner was an unknown finance manager. Later, he was never to be seen or heard.
This time, I guess, votes crunching-off will be massive, as well. Majority of our provinces have just one constituency. Not all candidates managed to gain support from political parties. Besides, as usual, people believe that some candidates must pay for places in the party lists. With all that taken in account, it appears that pre-electioneering will require a lot of money for public campaigns and promotion in social networks. And that does not ensure the desired effect.
Practice shows that those fond of social networks, do not have the time to physically meet with constituencies. Also, practice shows that the majority of candidates have zero pre-electioneering experience.
The rivalry will only augment until the next week, as not all of the party candidates have decided who will run.
Besides, we need to take into account the votes counting procedure. In 2021, I paid attention to big difference between how votes for the ruling party were counted in the Majilis and Maslikhats. First of all, Maslikhat votes counting procedure was extended for one more day. Secondly, in some 4 or 5 provinces, there were more votes in favor of the ruling party by 10% to 15% in Maslikhats, than in Majilis. But the thing is, people voted for the same party in two lists. It just cannot be so, that a ruling party’s branch in a region could be more popular than the central office.
One of my colleagues put forward an explanation to that – local executive bodies sold more places in the lists and then, to fulfil their duties, they had to adjust the results. But that was an unofficial assessment. Official explanation never followed.
Many people forecast this time, that after elections we will see scandals, litigations and shull-to-skull conflicts. Those supporting opposition will experience an informational overload. The situation will be very entertaining.
With Goals and Interests of Their Own
— How would evaluate the quality of independent candidates? Among them, there are people without the prior experience, or supporting groups and it looks like they are the ones who decided to trial themselves. Are there, among them, those who realistically can contribute into the legislative process?
— There are those lobbied and promoted. Many of them act out of the best aspirations. They want to make it into the Parliament and influence the situation in the country. There always are those not happy with the reality in the country. That is an objective thing. When we say that a certain candidate lacks experience in politics, we can, as well, pay attention to the starting stages of many politicians who are today in top executive offices – Governors, Mayors and Ministers. The same with the MP community – some of them came from constituencies, where they were students, private engineers or small business owners. Lack of MP experience was no obstacle for them – they made it and they manifested themselves in a good way.
Experience means nothing today. Of course, it is a competitive advantage, but far more important are IQ, competency and honesty.
Just pay attention to any random public servant – they all have dozens of prestigious diplomas. Do those diplomas help them to perform better – that is a big question. In other words, political and managerial or administrative experiences are not solid proofs, that a person will make a good MP.
Among political parties running for elections, we see the pro-presidential Amanat. President distanced himself from the latter. At the same time, the majority of other parties are pro-presidential without hesitations. Yes, there are those who openly lobby religious, economic or external interests. Some of the candidates just crave MP immunity. This country has seen campaigns, after which numerous land-developers appeared in Maslikhats. The latter turn into business lobbies.
Maslikhats Underestimated
— At least Maslikhats do not have payroll funds fed from central treasury. Seats in Maslikhats are public posts and candidates fight more for the influence.
— This time, elections commissions in provinces employ officers on the full-time basis. Territorial elections commissions do so partially. In the past, Maslikhat Secretaries were the only ones to be full-time employees, but today those will be Commission Chairs, as well. That means that part-time deputies, i.e. those who will spend most of their time fulfilling their professional deputies, are in high demand in provinces. Did you ever have a chance to see how the Almaty Maslikhat works? Take a browser and type a query – something like “Maslikhat Deputy” and you will see numerous references to phrases like “Maslikhat Deputy acts in support of the policies announced by the President” or “Maslikhat Deputy wins a governmental tender”, or “Maslikhat Deputy wanted by police in connection with a criminal investigation”. You will not see something like “Maslikhat Deputy filed an official inquiry” or “Declared a protest”, “Refused to support Mayor” etc.
In the last 10 to 15 years, we never heard news of a Maslikhat opposing a Mayor or a Governor or a Maslikhat discussing some topical urgent problems. There were some random acts by individual deputies, but nothing more.
Let us recollect the work of the Almaty Maslikhat with that famous deputy Ms. Savostina. She was one royal threat to the city administration in the sphere of pension and tariffs. Did we see anyone like her, afterwards? Yes, it may be so, that a single Deputy changes the reality. The thing is that provinces have tons of local problems, and those problems must be handled locally.
As for those running for MP seats, it is obvious that people fight for themselves, their businesses and their interests. They do not fight for the best of the provinces. As for Maslikhat Deputies, they must, first of all, protect their constituencies.
We must fundamentally improve the Maslikhat governance processes and procedures. We must deploy more people to work in Maslikhats. In Almaty Maslikhat, there are only ten executive officers. That could be sufficient for organizational purposes, but that is not enough for information generalization and reporting or for the monitoring of how decisions are implemented, or for the meetings with city folks. They do not even a press-secretary. In other words, all burden lies on the shoulders of the Maslikhat Secretary and those ten officers.
And we need more part-time deputies, for them to fulfil representative functions. They need some executive staff of their own.
— Especially because Maslikhats play important roles in adoption of important regional documents. Those documents sometimes only complicate the lives of local people.
— And we do not observe active public discussions of those documents prior to their introduction in practice, especially in the regions. They just download drafts in appropriate web-resources, but no public hearings and discussions of same happen.
That is why, we need a regulation, by which those draft documents will be discussed. We do have situations in our life, when Maslikhats approve regional budgets in the matter of some 15 minutes. We need to have clear procedures for the deputies to discuss most important issues. A typical procedure is adopted by a presidential edict, but we need to somehow strengthen work in that direction. When Maslikhats do not discuss and do not take part in the resolution of regional problems, all those problems go to the higher levels of public administration. Maslikhats, thus, turn into instruments of blind implementation of decisions made by local executive bodies. How much time did it take Maslikhat to approve the Almaty dwelling construction and land development plan, while the plan design and presentation were done by the office of the Mayor.
Antics, as MP’s Best Friend
— Which ones from the category of independent candidates you remember most? Do you have an expectations associated with those candidates?
— Vladimir Nehoroshev was a master of antics, but activists like him are gone. Yerasyl Abylkasymov was an idol, of course, as well as was Gani Kasymov. The latter was put forward by a single-mandate constituency, and he never managed to make it to Parliament as a part of the party lists. Eventually, he made it there by Presidential Quota. Those three are probably the three brightest deputies we knew. Bekbolat Tleukhan was the one, whose official inquiries would always trigger discussions and quotations in Mass Media. He was not from a single-mandate constituency, he was on a party list.
Today, we have two lists of candidacies, and there are some interesting persons there.
I am not very happy with the new leadership of the Popular Party of Kazakhstan. Its leadership includes Aikyn Konurov, one of the most active 7th Convocation MPs. I am not sure that the new leadership will lead them anywhere. Unfortunately…Or, luckily.
Ak Zhol have some energetic MPs – Azat Peruashev, Daniya Yespayeva, Yerlan Barlybayev.
We can also discuss Burihan Nurmuhamedov. He is on the list, but he never was a MP.
As for other parties, we will see, as nothing is very clear with them.
Soon, we will see single-mandate candidate registration. I think, then we will see some rock-n-roll. Because, so far all we hear are words.
We remember Zhaksybai Bazilbayev. He had several runs. He never cared about rallying votes, he would just leave the race. Alas, but he missed the last presidential elections. His antics, we missed.
There always are people, who declare willingness to run and then leave the process.
— Do you think there are chances that because of great number of bulletins and names, people do not know, as well as poor self-promotion of candidates, people will come and give votes to some random persons?
— That is pretty much possible. But everything depends on candidates, the way they promote themselves.
Many candidates assess themselves based on popularity in social networks, and they disregard the fact that people in constituencies do not know them.
Besides, we see some older politicians who came to run. The new generations of voters does not know them, although those persons were influential back in the 90-s of the 20th century.
World changes rapidly and every day. Electing masses change, as well. They do not remember those who dematerialized themselves from Mass Media and cyberspace. Elections of 2023 will be equally complicated for all of them – both parties and independent candidates, but that will some interesting collective experience.